Here.

Last night I was competing in the Rooster T. Feathers comedy competition in Sunnyvale. Go if you can. The club is old school (reminded me of Hollywood’s Comedy Store) — warm, pro, and one of the friendliest I’ve seen.

While waiting for the show to start, I saw Larry “Bubbles” Brown walking around — hilarious, been on Letterman, etc. I overheard somebody say he was headlining.

Later, a friend asked me who was headlining, so I said, “Larry Bubbles Brown.”

“No, I am headlining,” said a man next to me. I looked at him, but didn’t recognize him. I later found out he was Dan St. Paul — Comedy Central, MTV, opened for Seinfeld, did a movie with Robin Williams….

But I didn’t know this. So of course, being an idiot, I said:

……..“And who are you?”

He belly laughed and grimaced painfully.

Because I am an idiot.

Let this be a lesson.

Old but great 2005 article on her “quiet depravity”, panic attacks, SNL days, and process.

after hosting a rocking, high-energy show of 10 comics at the sf comedy clubhouse saturday, i went up in the pro lineup for the first time on the clubhouse’s new 5th floor pro stage for a drunk audience of about 80.

there’s a huge difference between performing on a smaller lounge-style stage for 40 where you can make eye contact with everyone in the room, and a larger stage with bright lights where everyone but the first two rows is lost in the glare.  i love the roar of the larger crowd (when i can *get* them to roar…), but prefer the intimacy of jamming with an audience i can actually see. performing under blinding hot lights is like performing in a room by yourself; the larger the stage, the easier your energy dissipates, so you have to work extra hard to conquer the space.

here are some big-stage tips.

first, open with something quick and hilarious—you want ‘em laughing as fast as possible.

stalk the stage to make it seem smaller, and occasionally come to the foot. getting closer to the crowd even for just a moment makes you seem more accessible, and gives you a chance to escape the lights and see farther.  make real eye contact and work as many rows as you can see during your set.  there’s a reason why people in the first 2 rows get all of the attention at a show: the comedian probably can’t see anyone else!  work those rows, riff with them, turn them into fools or stars or fool-stars, and the crowd won’t notice that you’re three-quarters blind up there.  

if you hear an audience member in the back row yell something, use it if the timing feels right. if you didn’t catch what was yelled, shield your eyes, look out, smile, and say, “what was that?”  then go after it.  don’t ignore it just because it came from 50 feet away; let the people in back feel connected to you too.  who knows, they could wind up being the best laughers in the whole room.  

before your set, hang out in back and watch the comics who are performing.  it’s a polite gesture and great for networking, plus it gives you a chance to scope out the crowd for riffing ideas and capture whatever details the previous comedians are mining about the crowd that you can then use for callbacks when you go up.

finally, use these onomatopoeic words to emulate the dental, alveolar, and laminal clicks of the clicking languages spoken by indigenous peoples in parts of africa and northern australia:

click

clack

clock

cluck

gleek

ok i’m officially tired of using the shift key. slows me down so fuck it.

if you’ve poked around here, you know by now that i did a lot of performance art in los angeles and orange county in the ’90s. testical puppet shows, screaming, running into walls, eating trash, sitting down on tacks, throwing up, getting doused in wine and blood, shaving my head, pulling fish out of my pants, rolling around on concrete, drawing on myself, licking honey off a wall, chopping off prosthetic fingers….

my performance art aesthetic is messy and imperfect. i like dirt, randomness, surreal flights, flying objects, chaos, chop, static, schmutz, and freudian slips because i like discovery in the moment. like my manifesto says, if you can’t repeat it, it’s probably performance art.

so when my comedy god-mentor recently told me that my stand-up would never be perfect, i was thrilled. by “perfect” i know he meant a stand-up set with all right angles, with perfect timing, with a clean delivery of no spit flying, no dancing around the stage, no hiccups, no ripping a fart in the middle just because it’s there.

i don’t want perfect. or rather, imperfection is my perfect. there’s nothing like taking some crazy-ass gamble for the first time in your life, then looking up at the audience and going, “shit, did you just see that?? oh my god!”  and the audience knows they just witnessed a moment nobody else is going to get. ever.

So I started hosting stand-up comedy nights about 2 months ago. Before my rough initiation, I used to think the M.C.’s job was easy — get up, say hello, do a set of jokes, then introduce each comic.   I couldn’t have been more wrong; hosting takes a *hell* of a lot more energy than stand-up alone. The M.C. sets the tone for the entire night right from the get-go, and has to keep the energy pumping from one comic to the next.  If a comic bombs, the M.C. has to get up and take the hits, raising the energy before the next comic gets up — all of which requires constantly reading the audience, riffing with them, tagging the previous comic’s jokes, and building the anticipation for the next man or woman up.  This isn’t easy to do in the moment, considering the host has to be timing and giving the red light to the comics on stage while fielding questions from other comics backstage while adjusting the line-up as needed while listening to the current comic and audience for snappy material ideas while trying to memorize the name of the next comic you’ve never heard of while writing material on the spot to introduce him/her. That’s a lot to juggle all at the same time.

But there’s something deeper at work.  This’ll sound corny, but the host is the embodiment of the love and respect in the room who has to maintain the flow, order, energy, and laughs both backstage and on stage.  Every comic who gets up deserves a warm, receptive audience, and a rocking intro, and the host must deliver.  If the audience isn’t responding, try something new.  Riff.  Do a backbend.  Whatever’s required.  The host *should not* leave the stage before the audience is primed.  It’s irresponsible.  It’s shocking how many times a host will bring up comics when the audience is cold — or even pissed off — which leaves the fresh comic having to spend 2-3 minutes building the energy back up, and if the comic’s a beginner, forget it.  A comic who’s forced to do that should be given the M.C.’s pay for the night.

2 weeks ago I was given the honor of introducing the M.C. for a hot pro show with a packed audience of 160 people and a string of hot comics warming up.  With a shit-eating grin, I ran on stage under the hot lights, grabbed the mic, and said hello…and nothing.  The mic was dead.  While the crew ran around trying to get it working, I found myself in a tough spot.  I could’ve just yelled hello to the crowd and brought up the host, but that would’ve *sucked* for him.  What would he do with no mic?  Since I was essentially playing M.C. to the M.C., I decided it would’ve been unfair to bring him on before an audience that hadn’t been spun up yet.  So I just stood there and riffed, yelling the whole time so the crowd could hear me.  I tried physical comedy.  I did a little dance.  I pranced around like a dork.  And eventually the mic came back on…but only after a grueling THREE MINUTES of sweating it out mime-style for a 180 people.  I was dripping.  Fucking rough.  I grabbed the mic and said hello.  And you should’ve heard the laughs and applause.  It was appreciation that I’d held the helm.  Once you sit down in that Captain’s chair, the audience bonds with you and wants to trust you.  And you must not, cannot, betray that.

Give great comics a bad host and the evening may be lost; but give a great host to beginner acts and the audience should be roaring.